Occam's Razor
by SecretSquirrel0891
Summary: The power of assumption, suggestion, and blood and kisses on a theatre floor.
1. Chapter 1

**Occam's Razor; and Other Pertinent Maxims for the Practising Bisexual**

* * *

"Occam's Razor: Also: _Ockham's razor_

 _Noun, mid-19_ _th_ _century._ The principle (attributed to William of Occam, or Ockham) that in explaining a thing, no more assumptions should be made than are necessary."

~ _The Oxford English Dictionary._

* * *

ONE

Of course, the ( _entirely incorrect, needless to say. Needless to even think it. Why was she even thinking it?)_ assumption had been made by others before. Serena had heard it said about her, behind her back and to her face too, and laughed it off, every time. It just went to show how people's minds worked, the baseness that they attributed to everything, and everyone, all of the time.

So she was a tough, no-nonsense, successful career woman, now divorced and no steady man in her life, true enough. But that wasn't so unusual, was it, in the twenty-first century? The failure of the marriage was, clearly, a consequence Serena could lay firmly at the philandering Edward's door. She hadn't strayed, had she? _(Unlike Bernie Wolfe. With a woman. In the desert)._ No, it had all been her ex-husband in that department. Perhaps Edward had mused aloud about her warmness with others _(there was nothing particularly intimate about helping a colleague who had locked up their back!)_ and coldness towards him; but it took two to make a marriage, and just one to break it _(was it the intimacy of war? Living in close quarters, was that it? How had it started?)_ , and he was the one who had taken what they had and torn it apart, not her.

Fine, so there had not been, since Edward, any long-term male companion to speak of _(lots of women find men a bit boring)_ , but was it her fault if the likes of the Robbies of this world weren't up to snuff? _(of course she had been disappointed when Robbie had turned out to be a rotter. How could one mistake such a feeling for relief!)_ Ask any woman her age, any age: a good man was hard to find _(everyone knew this)_ , and harder still to keep hold of _(truisms, truisms, everywhere!)_. People were always looking for gossip and scandal and, where none was to be found, inventing it _("you cheated on your husband with a woman!", the girl had shouted; and the absurdity of it, surely a ludicrous falsehood, and then Serena had seen Bernie's face, and knew at once it was true. A part of her knew it even earlier. Which part, Serena?)_ Particularly true of those who worked in hospitals, for some reason; the NHS practically ran on a rumour mill ( _were they already talking, someone, somewhere, about the two of them, wrapped up in one another on the theatre floor?)_. But really, Serena had told herself, for quite some time, not that long, but you know, just something of a time ( _really not that long. A perfectly sensible length of time. As long as she had known Bernie? More recently? Longer ago?_ ), really it just demonstrated the inherent danger in making assumptions. Because, after all, the truth was far more mundane, wasn't it?

The men Serena met were all somewhat hopeless. ( _And the women, Serena?)_ None, after all, quite measured up; were quite worth the leap of sacrificing her independence _(she hadn't chosen solitude. It had been foisted upon her. Exhibit A, Edward: philanderer. Exhibit B, Robbie: no backbone. Exhibit C, Bernie Wolfe: taking so bloody long to make a move… Oh god)._ For a time, it was true, she had idly thought of Ric on quiet evenings alone with a bottle of Shiraz, but in truth, there was nothing much there other than a mutual respect _("we are equals", Serena had said, and meant it. And later, wondering aloud if Bernie had any real appreciation for her. Had she really said that?)_ No real chemistry with him _(which is sometimes there, right from the very first moment someone says the word "cactus")_. There was nothing particularly _lesbian_ was there, about a woman her age, with a failed marriage behind her, serious responsibilities at work and at home, determining that the men around her were not worth taking up, and she simply preferred her own company? _(Nothing lesbian about that. No. The thoughts you have at 2am after a bottle of Shiraz and your fingers hover over Bernie's number in your phone, and then over other places…Well.)_ And, yes, fine, true enough, Serena was capable of enjoying the company, every now and then, at perfectly reasonable and acceptable intervals, of close female friends _(one in particular)._ That was all perfectly normal! Serena was perfectly entitled to make that decision, as a rational human being. A simple, uncomplicated, really quite boring lifestyle choice.

By lifestyle choice, of course, she meant the choice to go to work ( _see Bernie)_ , come home _(think about Bernie)_ , take care of Jason ( _Bernie really was great with him, they had such a rapport)_ and leave things there _(no more glasses of Shiraz. No more thinking about Bernie Wolfe. It has been less than a day since our last Bernie-fantasising incident)_. That was a _lifestyle_ , was it not? If not quite a life. Even if, as she told Bernie as they talked freely over an open chest cavity, all of us were really lonely after all.

That had, of course, just been a turn of phrase! Near-philosophical really. We come into this world alone and leave it on similar terms, of course, and hospitals were like ships ( _where was this going? Bernie was in the army, not the navy. Gosh, was there a uniform?)_ sailing around in the dark waters at each edge of the world, between life extant and extinct, birth and death, the beginning and the end, occasionally hitting stormy weather _(and so much better to ride out a storm with someone you trusted and could reply upon, batten down the hatches, settle in for the ride. Cling onto.)_ Serena hadn't meant, had she, when she spoke about loneliness, to clumsily allude to that gnawing need to touch others, to that urge to touch Bernie Wolfe ( _of all people!)_ , to that physical ache at her very heart and core that made her hold Bernie's gaze a few seconds longer than she really ought _(it doesn't bear thinking about. Don't)_ to that hope every night that Bernie would ask her for that drink at Albie's _(she had just lit the touch paper)_ , would perhaps ask her to do other things ( _that would be… nice),_ to the urge that came upon her a dozen times a day to reach out and put her hands on the trim, strong, good god did she hit the gym every day or what? – exceptionally fit _(big macho army medic)_ woman who –

No. That hadn't been what she had meant at all. She was a _dyed in the wool heterosexual, thank you very much!_ One could be friends, good friends, with a lesbian! – or a bisexual woman, or whatever Bernie was – without anything else going on! To think any other way would be homophobic. And probably heterophobic too.

Serena now tried to recall if Bernie had actively expressed any kind of identity, and considered that she hadn't quite heard her say anything aloud, but then Serena herself had been on a NHS diversity training course, and apparently these days it wasn't so unusual for women, in particular, not to identify any specific way, and in any case what did it really matter, as Bernie was her friend, colleague, equal and co-lead, and whatever she got up to in bed, out of it, whatever, wherever, with whoever was none of Serena's concern –

 _For a moment, for a sudden, horrid, but entirely genuine moment, she had thought, when she had seen that silly woman in the hospital bed with her stupid (and later revealed to be self-inflicted) injury, and heard the recognition in Bernie's voice, and felt the slight air of mystery and intrigue pervading the scene: the registrar, REALLY? Couldn't Bernie do a little better than this immature, irresponsible slip of a girl? And the rush of relief when it transpired that she was Bernie's son's girlfriend, and never had been with Bernie at all._

To be glad that a friend hadn't settled for less than she deserved, was just the simple concern of one pal for another. It didn't mean she was…

"SERENA CAMPBELL, LESBIAN."


	2. Chapter 2

TWO

The words stretched out, hung in the air of the ICU where Fletch was continuing to lie unconscious, conducting a silent, but ferocious battle for his life, tubes running all over him, going in and coming out, just as the doctors came in and out of the room, as trusty machines worked their magic, infusing and diffusing medicine, sustenance, all through Fletch's system, and kept their watch and their rhythm over him, all through the day and night.

Fletch _was_ unconscious, wasn't he? Serena glanced over the top of the chart to see if there had been any flicker of a reaction to her pseudo-coming out of a few moments earlier. Not that it had been a real coming out, of course. And not just because Fletch was currently in a coma, and couldn't hear her. _Could he?_

The words had, in themselves, just been an experiment, hadn't they. Thoughts aired aloud. An experiment was a perfectly valid means of testing a hypothesis. Making certain assumptions for the purposes of investigating a theory, and working on the basis of those assumptions so as to determine factors otherwise unaccounted for, was valid scientific procedure.

I mean, if, just supposing, and really the idea were ludicrous, let's just say, _if_ Serena _were_ a lesbian, well, what that would actually explain?

 _A lot. A hell of a lot. Why you were kissing Bernie Wolfe on the floor of the bloody theatre the other night for a full twenty minutes or more, for one thing._

 _Bernie kissed me_ , Serena thought. And then: _and I kissed her back._ Blood rushed, then and now, to certain places. There was, then, and now; in the moment, and in the memory, the heightening of heady desire. No conscious thought, just pure instinct. Something, somewhere, inside, had given, and Serena had leant forward and captured Bernie's lips with her own.

The thought almost made her gasp aloud. Then, and now.

Experiments were clinical. By their very nature, they were under controlled conditions. And there had been a distinct, uncharacteristic, lapse of control on her part. When she had met Bernie's lips with her own, and when she felt Bernie react to her kiss, her mind had transcended to a level not even the finest Shiraz had ever managed to reach ( _never mind Edward, Robbie or Ric_ ). It had been _even better a feeling than first being kissed by her, to feel her lips respond to Serena's own –_

What had to be allowed for here, Serena told herself, running her eyes up and down Fletch's chart for the fourth or fifth time, were the uncontrolled variables that had been in play. That was what had really thrown things off. The totally crazy set of circumstances in which they had found themselves. Their friend and colleague, attacked on the ward. What had happened to Fletch, the sudden horror of it, had caused a chain reaction that could not have been predicted.

Seeing Fletch there on the table between them, his life in their hands – they had shared an experience. And Bernie had felt compelled to kiss her, and when Bernie had done so, after all the portents of doom and death, Serena had responded to Bernie in a very human, I mean

\- _why say_ " _lesbian", specifically_ -

way.

It was a logical assumption, wasn't it, that in such intense, other-worldly circumstances, she would have kissed any other colleague –

 _Ric? God, erm, Raf, then? He was sort of cuddly in a diminutive sort of way, wasn't he!? This was absurd. Perhaps she couldn't think of one per se, but that hardly negated the point_

back, in that moment, surely, had they –

 _rather than Bernie Wolfe. The fantastic, fearless Bernie Wolfe…_

been the one to kiss her on the floor of that theatre

 _I mean really._

What right did Bernie have to prey on her when she was at a moment of such extreme crisis? When she was at such a low ebb? It was wholly unprofessional.

 _But then, a vision of Bernie's slight, sad, smile._

It was _Bernie_ who had been at her lowest point, blaming herself for an out of control patient -

 _what if he had stabbed Bernie? What if it had been her…?_

 _-_ beginning the self-recrimination, and Serena who had reassured her, meaning every word.

Bernie had stopped. Had pulled back, looked for Serena's reaction. And Serena had kissed her back. Hands on Bernie's strong arms, moving up into her ( _fabulous)_ hair and back down again, it seemed so natural to reach for her, and then Serena had felt Bernie's hands wrap around her waist _(god)_ as the kiss deepened, and Bernie pulled her close, but somehow, achingly, not close enough. And Serena wasn't thinking, I'm kissing a woman, for the first time – for all her confidence and knowing self-assurance, and even how she had been acting with Bernie these last few months, she had never even kissed a woman before – Serena thought only, _Bernie_ and _at last._ And could not have said, then or now, what she meant by either.


End file.
